being the church
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God Didn’t Call Us to Be Successful, He Called Us to Be Faithful
A few years ago, studying the book of Isaiah, I was deeply impacted by the fact that God called Isaiah, not to be successful, but to be faithful. What? Yup. In fact, God warned him that his ministry would have no converts. One could ask, “Why bother?” Our human voices ask ourselves, “What’s the point?”…
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We Criticize What We Know
“We criticize in others the very things we are guilty of ourselves. The reason we see hypocrisy, deceit, and a lack of genuineness in others is that they are all in our own hearts.” http://utmost.org/the-unchanging-law-of-judgment/
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An open letter to pastors {A non-mom speaks about Mother’s Day} // The Messy Middle
(Great post with excerpts below. Follow the link at the end to read the full article…) To those who gave birth this year to their first child—we celebrate with you To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day…
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We all mentor everyday – whether we realize it or not.
Mentoring Resources from Fingerprint Ministries: We all mentor everyday – whether we realize it or not. We leave a mark and make a difference in the lives of the people in our lives. The question is, “What kind of mark are we leaving? What kind of difference are we making?” Author Ann Griffiths shares below……
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Religious Leaders: You Love Us, You Hate Us
Loving Our Spiritual Leaders: by Henri Nouwen… “Religious leaders, priests, ministers… can be admired and revered but also hated and despised. We expect that our religious leaders will bring us closer to God through their prayers, teaching, and guidance. Therefore, we watch their behavior carefully and listen critically to their words. But precisely because we…
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It’s 3AM… (Thoughts on Rejection)
…and I can’t sleep… today I finally finished Joyce Meyer’s book, ‘Ashes to Beauty’. I kept getting interrupted several times. One of the last chapters I read today had this… “Almost every time God is ready to promote you and bring you to the next level, you will experience an attack of rejection at the…
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The Disease Called “Perfection”
Be bold about your weaknesses and you will change people’s lives. Be honest about who you actually are, and others will begin to be their actual selves around you. Once you cure yourself of the disease, others will come to you, asking if they can just “talk”. People are desperate to talk. Some of the…
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God’s Light Within Us
“Although we carry the light of Christ within us, many of us fail to recognize the exciting spiritual impact we have on others. We become distracted by the little things in life, unaware of how God’s light within us challenges the darkness around us. Much of the time, we are focused only on those things…
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The Fruits of Our Lives
“What counts in your life and mine is not successes but fruits. The fruits of our life are born often in our pain and in our vulnerability and in our losses. The fruits of our life come only after the plow is carved through our land. God wants us to be fruitful. The question is…
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What God Truly Calls Us To
“Constantly choosing to be busy may be an unconscious attempt to have value before the Lord. To deepen requires exactly the opposite! We must slow down, choosing to spend blocks of time with God in private. We need to let go of the value we place on service, availability and busyness and take up the…
Following and Trusting : Encountering God Out of the Box 